A Bored Lich

"How do I win this game?" Doevm asked.

Maximus let out a sigh: "Straight to the point, just like always."

'Like always?' Doevm thought.

"Sit." A single word out of Maximus's mouth ignited a rebellion in Doevm's legs, turning his body against his mind and locking himself into an upright-sitting position.

Doevm's stomach sank. Even though he knew what Maximus did and how he did it, he was still stuck. 'What if he had ordered me to kill myself?' he thought, the Grand Shaman's face flashing in his mind.

Maximus seemed to see straight through Doevm's complicated expression. He laughed in an attempt to relieve the tension, "Don't worry. I was merely demonstrating why you needed to learn the basics."

Doevm scrunched his lips. "You're just as petty as I am, fath…Maximus."

"I don't know what you mean," Maximus said, making a show of shrugging his shoulders.

Doevm gave Maximus the same, disappointed look he would always give him after one of Maximus's bad jokes or occasional pranks, back when the Draken family was still whole. 'At least he still has his "winning personality" as he called it,' he thought.

Maximus cleared his throat. "The basics have to come before I can provide you with any answers, or you may not understand them."

"Yes, of course," Doevm said.

"And you need to read the entire book too," Maximus said.

Doevm nodded.

"So…get started," Maximus said. He handed Doevm the several-hundred page book, "Perceiving the Game Board", and floated in place, waiting.

Doevm alternated his attention between the book and Maximus. "You did not think this part through, did you?"

"No, no I did not," Maximus said. "If you have any questions, I'll be floating in that area over there." Without another word, he floated away.

Doevm let out a sigh. He flipped to the first page and a sudden, inexplicable wave of relief washed over him, as if all the tension of the past few weeks evaporated. His muscles shed their constant soreness and the weight on his shoulders no longer felt heavy.

The book was like many within his old library; Ancient, yellowed, and thoroughly maintained, he'd sit on his throne and flip through the pages for days at a time without a care in the world. Knowledge and magic reigned over his undead life, and he was a willing servant. He'd thought about rebuilding many times, but those days were over.

While new uses for soulmagic did reignite Doevm's lust for knowledge, an annoyingly complex sensation rose up with it. The more he read, the more certain he became. There was a path forward. There was hope. 'I can work with this,' he thought. 'I can come back to the group with answers.'

Finally, with all the pieces of the puzzle, he could assemble the full picture. He reached for the next page however, instead grabbing the back cover. The pieces fell between his fingers and out of sight. He closed the book with a deep frown. "Where is the rest of it?"

"That is all of it," Maximus said as he floated over to Doevm.

Doevm repeatedly tapped his finger on the book's spine. "As promised, I read the book, and it showed me the basics."

"It also gave instructions on how to separate your soul and body," Maximus added.

"How is that supposed to help me kill gods?" Doevm asked. "I fail to see the point, or do they have a physical body which they are projecting from?"

Maximus shook his head. "Actually it is quite the opposite for them, but that comes later. I told you, the basics come first."

Doevm opened his mouth to retort, but Maximus's stoic expression made him decide otherwise. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "What shall I do next?"

"Through perceiving your own soul, you can perceive others," Maximus said. "Try separating your soul and body."

Doevm flipped the book to the exact page which described the process and set it in front of him. Doing as the book instructed, he adopted a meditative posture and slowed his bodily functions to the point of near death, a technique Maximus must have developed from watching War Monks. Doevm breathed out and his soul, intangible and invisible, left with it, leaving the body to mindlessly continue its instinctual functions.

Doevm willed himself, his soul, to continue forward. An odd feeling struck him, however, and he tried to stop himself. He couldn't stop. He was shaking, his new form worn and broken. Deep scars ripped open across his soul, growing deeper by the second.

He was breaking apart.

Pain erupted through Doevm's soul literally to his core, the shock replacing his intellect with a primal instinct for survival. Mouthless, he could not vent his agony. Formless, he could not flail about. He drifted apart, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Gently and with great care, a pair of warm hands pieced Doevm back together. The pain faded as if it had never existed. "Maintain yourself," Maximus's voice broke through the confusion, and Doevm was compelled to obey. As the hands eased on their support, Doevm struggled to himself together.

Doevm committed the sensation of "wholeness" to memory. It was one thing to separate his soul from his body, and another to maintain it, like asking a blind man to see.

Furthermore, without a body, the five main senses of touch, hearing, taste, smell, and sight were nonexistent. Soul projection, for lack of a better term, only had a sixth sense. He couldn't see, yet he knew where souls were. His soulless body was a dull husk behind him while Maximus was like a candle flame. Everything else was nonexistent.

Stabilized, Doevm experimented with moving himself around, nearly coming undone in the process. Maximus kept a firm leash on him, and gently tugged him to the left and right.

"Learn to resist the motion," Maximus said and, although his words lacked the persuasiveness of soulmana, Doevm tried to follow his instructions regardless.

'According to the book, souls operate like yin and yang,' Doevm thought. 'There is no left or right nor up or down, only push and pull. He is pulling, and so I must push.'